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Five letters, none in its own envelope

Question

Five letters and their five matching addressed envelopes get mixed up, and the letters are stuffed into the envelopes completely at random, one per envelope. Find the probability that no letter is in its correct envelope.

Short answer

11/3011/30. This counts derangements: by inclusion–exclusion the number of permutations of 55 with no fixed point is 5!(1−1+12!−13!+14!−15!)=445!\left(1-1+\tfrac1{2!}-\tfrac1{3!}+\tfrac1{4!}-\tfrac1{5!}\right)=44, and 44120=1130\tfrac{44}{120}=\tfrac{11}{30}.

Adapted from Zhou, A Practical Guide to Quantitative Finance Interviews, sec. 4.2 Combinatorial Analysis, 'Application letters', p.68; question and answer rewritten by SelfMadeQuant.com.

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